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BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK (STAFF WRITER)
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Published: January 2, 2011

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The Sunday Times asked local state legislators to discuss their priorities as they head to Harrisburg for new or first terms this year. Here are summaries of their answers:

- Rep. Ken Smith, D-112, Dunmore, said his emphasis will be creating jobs. Mr. Smith said he is working to help a former Lackawanna County resident obtain state money for training employees to develop an energy company that turns discarded tires into electricity.

Mr. Smith said the General Assembly must continue to provide more money for education because Gov. Ed Rendell's investment of tax dollars in early childhood and other education programs is paying off with higher scores on state standardized achievement tests.

Better to spend $7,500 a year on a student now than $35,000 per prison inmate later, Mr. Smith said.

- Rep. Mike Carroll, D-118, Avoca, said he will concentrate on ensuring the completion of a new connector road between the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport and Interstate 81 and finding permanent funding for the badly needed overhaul of the state's highways, bridges and other infrastructure.

"We have to find a way to pay for it," Mr. Carroll said.

Mr. Carroll said he will also push for a Marcellus Shale tax to pay for problems that arise from gas development and proper oversight of the industry.

- Rep.-elect Sid Michaels Kavulich, D-114, Taylor, said his top priority is reforming the General Assembly. That includes ending automatic cost-of-living pay increases, eliminating per diem expense payments or requiring expense receipts and contributing a portion of their pay toward health care premiums.

He plans to push for substantial performance bonds to cover the costs of repairing roads, bridges and other infrastructure if shale development companies fail to do that and to ensure state residents are hired for shale-related jobs.

- Sens.-elect John Blake, D-22, Archbald, and John Yudichak, D-14, Plymouth Twp., said the Legislature must take steps to deal with the tough economy, but the immediate challenge is cutting the state's impending $5 billion budget deficit without inflicting too much pain on citizens.

"The corporate net income tax (9.9 percent) is onerous," Mr. Blake said. "I think it's also only a burden on a handful of corporations. I don't think this administration is as interested as I am in closing the Delaware loophole, but it's something I'd like to fight for."

The so-called "Delaware loophole" allows companies that do business in Pennsylvania to shift revenues to states with lower taxes. Mr. Blake said he will also push to eliminate the cap for on tax deductions for operating losses.

Mr. Blake, who will serve as Democratic chairman of the Local Government Committee, said he will push for overhauling the state law governing distressed municipalities such as Scranton to reduce the time they spend distressed and to provide state money to encourage more regionalization of services.

He does not have specific legislation in mind.

He also plans to push for more money to train people to work in the state's burgeoning Marcellus Shale gas industry, to find a funding source for transportation infrastructure funding and to turn Senate ethics rules into state law.

- Mr. Yudichak said the orderly development of Marcellus Shale gas tops his priority list, but state and local government reform, especially the regionalization of services, are near the top, too. Mr. Yudichak has long championed regionalization.

With local municipalities struggling financially, increased regionalization that saves money is a must, he said. Like Mr. Blake, he will push legislation that gives municipalities incentives to share services.

Mrs. Baker's office issued a statement outlining her top priorities. They are overhauling the state's juvenile justice system, focusing the state's homeland security agency on "real threats rather than monitoring citizens exercising their constitutional rights," and creating a severance tax on shale that would "direct substantial dollars toward community and environmental protection."

Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk @timesshamrock.com

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